India, Oct. 23 -- For years, huge quantities of soil dug up during the cleanup of Fukushima have been stored in vast facilities near the site of the 2011 nuclear disaster. Now, Japan is trying something unusual with some of it: putting the soil back into public infrastructure under strict controls.

Japan is giving some of the soil removed during the Fukushima nuclear cleanup a second life by using it in carefully controlled public works instead of sending all of it to permanent disposal. Japan's Ministry of the Environment states that final disposal of removed soil and other waste generated by the cleanup must be completed outside Fukushima by March 2045. Rather than sending all of the material to a permanent disposal site, the governmen...